A coming out story of another sort, how Leonard Lai (“High Cost of Living”) became a filmmaker, an excerpt below.
“I have been making films for about 5 years now, going into my 6th year in 2009, with little results to show. I will be 36 years old in 2009, how many more years do I have?
I don’t know whether other filmmakers go through periods like this; when I am thinking that I must be crazy to even try to make films in Singapore, let alone films that are not commercialize, little films that means much maybe only to me. It doesn’t help when family doesn’t support you. When one tells you often enough that you don’t have what it takes, slowly your will and determination starts to erode, starts to decay.”
Well worth a read, if only to counterpoint the “I made my first feature film when I was 12” bios, people think artists are just born without realising that for many, it is a decision to be made to become, not something one drifts into. To read more of about his journey, click here.
His essay also begs the question, what does it mean to “be a filmmaker”? What is one really committing to?
